A great start on fundraising efforts is just one of the reasons the Sunshine Coast Botanical Garden Society is feeling good about the potential for the garden in West Sechelt.
At a public information meeting on Sunday, March 2, society president Lori Pickering announced donors have already committed $300,000 towards buying one of two 40-acre (16.2 hectare) properties. The society's goal is to raise $1.5 million before making an offer.
"We feel there's some urgency to gain a site fairly soon, or the society could lose its momentum," said Pickering, who envisions the garden as a tourist attraction, a learning centre and a boost to local horticultural businesses.
Society vice-president Paul Schouw, who's also a practicing architect, presented conceptual plans for the sites before about 20 onlookers. His MAZE concept includes a corn maze, an arable zone, a zen garden and an "exotic and esoteric" section, where plants such as the Himilayan blue poppy may be found.
While that plan is just preliminary, the society hopes the final design will include gardens with medicinal and culinary herbs, native plants, xeriscape plants (requiring little or no water) and plants from other temperate regions on Earth. There will also be an ethnobotanical garden, a children's garden and a conservation garden that will contain notable local subspecies, such as the Elphinstone rhododendrons.
The society also has plans to hold courses and workshops on organic gardening and food gardening, while a central building on site could be a home to a Master Gardener certificate program. Capilano College has been mentioned as a possible partner, and Pickering said there's "a whole list of associations we have letters of intent with."
It's the same plan the society will submit to the Agricultural Land Commission, that, depending on the property, may have to grant the society a permitted use exemption. Zoning is unlikely to be an issue, as the top choice property is zoned as a rural resource (RR-2), which covers uses such as agricultural production and nurseries. Pickering said the District of Sechelt has assured her rezoning shouldn't be a problem if it is needed.
The garden will charge admission, but the cost won't be onerous, Pickering said. Gate income will likely result in only about 10 per cent of total income for the charitable society, and expenses will be covered mainly by events and fundraising. Initially, the society hopes to find a few partners to buy the land and hold it as a joint venture until the society raises enough to buy it, said society member Paddy Whales. Treasurer Mary Blockberger noted it's "much easier for grant applications once we have the land." The 350-member society is also looking for professional fundraisers to join the campaign.
After five years of negotiations, the society's proposal for a garden in Gibsons disintegrated, in part because the land they were looking at was available only for lease, not sale. Topography also posed a challenge, with significant swampy swaths, and limits posed by the Inglis Trail and Charman Creek meant less than 15 per cent of the land would have been available to grow on, Schouw said.
